


You Needn't Be Alone

by takethisnight_wrapitaroundme



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: (references), Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Temporary Character Death, Community: theoldguardkinkmeme, Enthusiastic Consent, F/M, Family Feels, Family Reunions, Marriage, Married Couple, Men Crying, Mild Sexual Content, Missing Scene, POV Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Reunions, Wedding Night, aka my favorite kind of consent, booker actually being in touch with his emotions is my kink, so much crying!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:05:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27210130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takethisnight_wrapitaroundme/pseuds/takethisnight_wrapitaroundme
Summary: “If she had been a lesser woman, she might’ve fainted at the sight of him.”After dying and inexplicably coming back to life, Booker returns home to his wife and children in Marseille.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Booker | Sebastien le Livre's Wife
Comments: 22
Kudos: 69





	You Needn't Be Alone

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been getting emotional about Book’s wife in the margins of fics since day one, so you knew it was only a matter of time before I ended up here. Thanks to [this wonderful prompt](https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/4011.html?thread=1241515#cmt1241515) for the inspiration. OP, I hope I did it justice here. As always, I abide by the detail in the comics where Booker has four sons, not three. Please enjoy, everybody! <3

> _**Autumn, 1813** _

The moment he reaches the outskirts of Marseille, Sébastien wants to run, but he makes himself walk the final few miles home. Evening has already started to settle as he wends his way through the city proper, but it makes no matter. Even after four years away, he could walk these streets blind and still make it home.

The city is markedly quieter now than it was when he left it. There are no young men on the streets, and even fewer old men. The women who pass him take care to move out of the way and avert their eyes, though whether it’s due to fear or disgust he isn’t quite sure. He knows his hair and beard must make him look unkempt to the point of dangerous, and though he bathed in a creek the day before, he isn’t sure if it had much effect given that he still had to put back on the dirty, bloody clothes afterward. He long ago got accustomed to his own stink, for there was nothing else for it, though now he does wish sorely that he had soap and fresh clothes. He does not like to think of the impression he will make once he arrives.

He must have been walking faster than he thought, for all at once he turns a corner and he looks to his left and he’s home. After months of traveling, after years away, he’s arrived back where he started, just like that.

The sight of the house draws him up short, like he’s been punched in the stomach, and he nearly doubles over, right there in the empty street. He can see light inside, peeking out from behind the closed shutters. His ears are filled with the sudden pounding of his own heart, but beneath that, he can hear the ruckus of the boys. The three of them—no, _four_ now, he realizes with a lurch—make enough noise for an entire barracks’ full of men. He wonders how Joanna has managed with them all since he’s been gone, but for once he cannot stop to wallow in the guilt.

He stumbles toward the noise of them as if pulled by an invisible hand. One foot after the other, nearly tripping over the uneven stones beneath his feet because he cannot takes his eyes off the building. Its two stories look much the same as ever, though he notices that the roof is in need of repair. He’s already adding it to a list of tasks to be completed, his hand on the doorknob, before he stops himself.

It has been four years since he left. Over half a year since the army hung him for desertion and continued on their bitter march towards Moscow. In that time, Joanna has certainly heard what happened. In that time, she has had four sons to care for in a country more concerned with winning warns than caring for its citizens. He cannot— _will_ _not_ —blame her if she found help. How was she to know he would ever return? Even he cannot explain it to himself.

Perhaps that is a sign, he finds himself thinking, stumbling away from the door. Maybe he should not have come home after the hanging, but gone off on his own instead. Surely whatever twisted miracle left him to suffer, choking for days beneath that noose, was a sign that he should have continued after his regiment instead of fleeing home. A man incapable of being killed was certainly of more use on the battlefront than the homefront.

But just the thought of going back makes him want to die all over again. He never wanted to go in the first place, never wanted to be a soldier. He only ever wanted to be here, with Joanna. He only ever wanted to be left alone with his family, to scrape out a living on their own terms and nobody else’s.

And maybe now he can.

He steps back towards the door before he can think better of it, shoving aside all the fears piling up. He cannot let such things rule him anymore, not now that he has conquered the world’s greatest fear. He knocks twice, loud, hard enough to sting his knuckles.

The noise inside does not cease at the knock. He can hear the boys more clearly now; they are arguing over some friend he has never heard of. Their voices have changed, he realizes with a wistful ache. François was eleven when Sébastien went to war; he must be fifteen now, but he sounds so much older, almost like a man. Even Théo’s voice doesn’t squeak the way it used to when he was nine. And Alexander is using full sentences now; Sébastien can hear him trying to be heard amidst his brothers’ squabble.

Joanna is shouting at them to hush when she pulls open the door. Her head is turned to the side as she does so, and so all he sees at first is her hair. Pale blonde and wavy from being curled during the day, it falls well over her chest now, longer than he remembers it being when he left. His heart surges at the sight of her like this—she only ever wears her hair down at home, and he has always loved that about her. It is like a secret they share.

“Désolée,” she is saying when she finally turns to face him. “My boys are—”

She breaks off mid-sentence when their eyes meet, and for a second, he fears she will not recognize him. He is not wearing the clothes he left in. He is hardly wearing clothes at all—they are so dirty and bloody and ruined that they are little more than rags, clearly scavenged from corpses. Even though he tried to clean himself off, he is dirty and sweating from the road again. He wonders if she can recognize him beneath all the dirt and hair, and he hopes that by smiling he does not add to the fearsome picture.

“It’s me,” he whispers. Despite his best efforts, his voice still cracks into pieces when he speaks to her, like a body thrown from a great height. “Joanna, it’s me.”

If she had been a lesser woman, she might’ve fainted at the sight of him. He can see her whole body shake as she draws in a shuddering breath. It expands in her chest and lifts her shoulders, making her seem so powerful that he has the sudden urge to fall to his knees.

But he cannot move. He is frozen in place, waiting to hear if another has taken his place, waiting for her judgment as if it is the end-all, for it is. The Almighty held no sway over him, not even in death, but she—she holds everything for him. She always has.

“You’re supposed to be _dead_ ,” she chokes out, and for the briefest moment he thinks she is going to strike him.

But then she launches herself forward, throwing her arms around his neck.

He still has height on her—a good ten or so centimeters—but none of the weight either of them are used to. Instead of being a buttress, he staggers back beneath the force of her, nearly falling over before she manages to right them both. Her hands are on his face immediately, pushing his hair out of the way, touching, touching, touching his skin like she can’t believe he’s real.

“How?” she keeps whispering. “How? How? How?”

He has no answer, but nor does he need one, at least not right now. She’s here in his arms and she’s kissing him desperately and nothing else matters because he has dreamed of this moment for four years, never believing it would come true. He can feel her tears against his cheeks, mingling with his own, and he just holds her tighter, one hand buried in that beautiful long hair of hers, and the other wrapped tight around her waist.

They do not part until a confused voice interrupts them.

“Maman?”

“ _Oh_.” Joanna breaks their kiss, bowing her head against her husband’s jaw to gather herself before turning slightly in his arms. Her eyes overflow once more, just at the sight of them—all four, crowded in the doorway, peering out in a mixture of hope and confusion and fear. She wipes her eyes as best as she can, but it’s impossible, the tears can’t be stopped.

“Boys, look,” she manages, stepping to the side so they can see, “your father’s home.”

There is an eternity packed into a moment, where no one moves. Sébastien doesn’t dare to draw a breath as his eyes dart from one face to the next, longing for recognition. He is trying to think of something to say to prove himself, but before he can, François and Théodore are careening towards him, colliding with him so roughly they knock him straight to the ground.

 _“Doucement!”_ Joanna shrieks, hearing his head hit the pavement. “Doucement! François, Théo, please be gentle with your father. He—”

“I am fine,” Sébastien soothes, finding her eye as he hugs his two eldest tightly. He can already feel his head healing, and he knows he won’t have a cut or even a bruise to show for it. “I am not as fragile as I look, do not worry.”

She bites hard on her lower lip, covering her mouth with a hand when her chin starts to shake again. It makes him wish he had a third arm so he could hug her too. But he knows now that there will be time for that later. For now, he holds his sons tight, pressing kisses first to one head, and then the other, all the while whispering how much he loves them, and how much he’s missed them.

“Up,” he calls finally, squeezing one shoulder and then the other. “Let me see you. You’re so much bigger than I remember. Are you taller than me now too?”

The boys scramble to their feet, and as he lurches up after them, Sébastien can tell from just one glance that François will outgrow him. At fifteen, the boy already comes up to his shoulder. Théo, at thirteen, isn’t far behind.

“Look at you,” he whispers, taking in one face and then the other, trying to reconcile these almost-men with the children he left behind. Their faces are soft still, not fully chiseled, but they’ve lost much of the fat that defined them as boys. Théo’s hair is just as blonde as his mother’s and while François has his father’s brown hair, it curls in a way his never has. Sébastien can’t stop his eyes from filling again, but nor can he stop grinning. The pride is hot in his chest, burning his ribs. “Look how big you both are. Look how _handsome_ you are.”

Théo smiles happily at that last compliment, but François smirks knowingly, lifting his chin higher like he’s heard it before and he knows it’s true. Sébastien laughs at the reactions, adding another task to his mental list. Maybe Joanna beat him to the conversation about girls, but it wouldn’t hurt to give the boy a reminder while he’s still young.

It’s then that he looks for her and notices the littlest ones are still lingering in the doorway. Joanna has taken them each by hand and is nudging them forward with soft entreaties. “Come on, my loves. Come say hello to your papa. That’s it, come on.”

Sébastien wipes his face, swiping beneath his nose as he crouches back down on his haunches. Joanna gives him a watery smile as they get closer.

“Hi, Sasha,” Sébastien whispers to the older boy, trying for a smile. “You might not remember me, but you’re named after my papa. Alexander. I’m sorry for showing up like this, I know I must look a bit scary…”

He trails off, hoping for that flash of recognition he got from the older boys, hoping for—anything. But there’s nothing, just those big eyes of Sasha’s warily searching his face, and finding nothing familiar.

“Bonsoir, monsieur,” the boy whispers finally. His little voice is polite but utterly devoid of emotion.

Torn between laughing and sobbing, Sébastien has to cover his mouth and look away. Joanna crouches down between her sons, and touches Sasha’s shoulder.

“Why don’t you give your papa a hug?” she whispers in his ear. “He hasn’t seen you in a very, very long time.”

The boy follows the suggestion without hesitation, which Sébastien supposes shouldn’t surprise him. Joanna has always known how to keep the boys in line, even before he left. At eight, Sasha is so much more of a person than Sébastien remembers. His arms are not the tiny, doughy things that clung to him as he left four years ago. Still, he is nowhere near as grown as his other brothers, so Sébastien keeps his touch as light as possible. He breathes in the smell of the boy, and presses a kiss to his cheek with a soft _Merci_.

When the boy steps back, automatically returning to his place beside his mother, Sébastien notices that his youngest has retreated to hiding behind Joanna’s skirts. Sébastien smiles, tilting his head to the side to try and catch his eye. Immediately, the boy buries his face in the fabric of her dress—only to peek out again a moment later. Sébastien’s smile widens at the show of curiosity, and he gives a little wave.

“You must be Jean-Pierre.”

He tries to say more, but suddenly his throat feels so very tight. It was only after he’d already left for the front that he learned of Jean-Pierre. It took Joanna a few months to realize herself, and by the time her first letter got to him, she was well along. She had promised to name the baby after him, if it was another boy, but he refused her. He did not want to be memorialized while he was still alive. And then, when he’d been hanging, he had thought of the boy. His last thought in that life was that he should’ve let Joanna name the child as she wanted.

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” is all Sébastien can get out.

He looks up to Joanna then, because if he stares any longer at the boy he thought he’d never live to see, he will start weeping all over again.

“Come,” she calls, holding out a hand to him. “Come on inside now.”

It is warm and light inside, and though the front room is familiar in its proportions, it is impossible not to notice all that has changed since he left. The shelves full of books are the only things that remain as he remembers them, untouched. The rest—the framed paintings on the walls, the nicer rugs, the more comfortable chairs, and all the nicer furniture—all gone. In some cases, the missing items have been replaced with shabbier versions; in some cases, only emptiness remains. He stares more than he ought to, trying to remember what used to be where. Trying to calculate how much she needed to survive that he hadn’t provided.

“It’s been a long four years,” Joanna whispers apologetically into the silent room.

When he looks over at her, she’s staring down at the floor, avoiding his gaze. He glances around at the room and catches sight of the older boys, lingering by the table. Even François is too embarrassed to meet his eye.

“I’m sure you did what had to be done,” he says to Joanna, not missing the way she has busied herself with picking up Jean-Pierre and attending to some nonexistent issue with his clothing.

“I’m know you must be hungry,” she continues, as if that’s what they had been discussing. “Supper isn’t ready yet, I’m so sorry, but it will be soon, I promise. There are clothes upstairs, if you’d like to change before then. And the boys can fetch you water if you want to wash—”

“Joanna.”

“But we won’t be able to heat the water, I apologize, because we had to get rid of—”

He has to place his hands on either side of her face to capture her attention.

“I want you to know,” he says, speaking very slowly, “that I am so very happy to be home. You think I care that things are missing? The house could have burned down while I was away, but so long as you and the boys are safe, that’s all that matters. All the rest, all the details—I don’t care. I can wait until tomorrow to eat. I can wait until tomorrow to bathe. I am just happy to be here with you.”

Her chin shakes as she struggles not to cry. “You’re sure?”

He strokes the curve of her cheek with one thumb, and instead of answering, he kisses her solidly on the mouth. By the time he pulls away, her free hand has risen to his face, her fingers tangled in his long beard.

“In that case,” she says, “you cannot wait until tomorrow for a bath. I love you, but you smell foul.”

On the other side of the room François and Théo start to snicker, and in Joanna’s arms, even little Jean-Pierre joins in on laughing at the joke that he surely can’t begin to understand. Or maybe he can. It’s been four years; he’s missed so much.

“Ah, now I feel like I am truly home,” Sébastien says. “Everyone is making fun of me.”

“We are not,” Joanna insists. “And go on,” she calls, catching the attention of her two older boys and waving them out. “Be useful for once and get some water for your father, will you? I have to finish supper.”

Sébastien watches as they trudge outside dutifully, snatching up the pails by the door. Joanna sets Jean-Pierre on the floor, bidding Sasha to mind him while she moves into the kitchen. Sébastien shadows her, his eyes roaming all about the space, trying to take in as many clues to their welfare as he can.

He’s still looking about when Joanna turns to him and presses a pair of scissors into his hands, tipping her chin up at his face.

“Cut that mess off while you wash,” she commands, and he smiles, promising he will.

In time, the boys return with the water, and while it takes them more than a few trips to fill the tub, they do so without complaint. The water, while colder than he’d like, is still a balm. The soap is a true luxury, as are the clean clothes one of the boys was thoughtful enough to set out for him beside the bath.

He takes his time, scrubbing off all the built-up dried blood and grime and who knows what else off his skin. Once he feels clean—and the water is impossibly dirty—he picks up the scissors and starts hacking away. He does away with inches at a time, until finally it’s so short that he can just barely run his fingers through it. Without a looking glass, he knows his work must be patchy and uneven in places. Tomorrow, he thinks, Joanna can help him trim it properly. He’s always liked the feel of her hands in his hair.

While he dries off, he rummages though the cabinets, searching for his straight razor. He’s staring to think maybe François took it—is it possible that he’s already old enough to be able to shave?—when he notices it tucked away in the far side of one of the cabinets. He checks the blade with a finger—still sharp enough to draw blood with just a touch, good.

And then he glances to the door, making sure it’s closed, before driving the razor’s edge deep into his palm. He carves a bloody _X_ across its clean expanse, watching the small divot in the middle of his hand fill and then overflow with blood. He sucks his teeth against the searing pain, but as he watches, the flow of blood comes suddenly to a stop. When he dips his hand in a bowl of water and then pulls it out again, the skin is as clean and unblemished as it was when he stepped out of the bath minutes ago. He flexes his hand, turning it this way and that, but not even the tiniest mark remains to attest to the damage. It’s as if the cut—and the hanging, and everything between then and now—never happened.

He refuses to think about God. Refuses to think about miracles or punishments. He has spent months chasing an explanation and he has gotten nothing for it except sleeplessness and fear.

So instead, he takes the razor in hand and he shaves off over a year of growth from his face carefully, as if the cuts matter and any nicks will remain behind to fester. It is best to act as if things are normal until he has a way to explain himself.

When he finishes, his face is as smooth as his younger sons’, and he spends a while just touching it, trying to remember the feel of being clean, being presentable. Does it always feel this magical? He’s still marveling at it all when there’s a knock on the door.

He turns just as Joanna pokes her head in, and so he’s able to watch the way her eyes widen almost comically in surprise.

“Well, look at you,” she manages after a couple attempts.

“Look at me.”

He holds her gaze, feeling his own eyes burn again, and he wonders how long it will take before they stop crying at the mere sight of each other.

“I, um, I came to say supper’s ready,” she says, finally remembering herself. “So if you’d like to come and eat…”

“Nothing I’d rather do,” he replies, following after her out the door.

As they head to the table, already full of boys waiting and steaming bowls of strew, Sébastien tries to remember the last time he ate. There was the rabbit he killed two days ago and devoured raw. Or maybe it was three days ago? He can’t quite recall and it certainly doesn’t matter, because here is a whole meal, sitting right in front of him. He already has his spoon in hand before he he’s even sat down, and it’s only with a pointed throat-clearing from his wife that he remembers to say grace.

It’s a perfunctory-bordering-on-blasphemous prayer that he offers up, but he hopes God will forgive him. He doesn’t hesitate after the _Amen;_ he devours the food in front of him and doesn’t look up until his bowl is empty. It’s then that he realizes the others have barely touched theirs; and they are staring at him as if he’s some kind of animal that’s just rampaged through their pantry.

He feels a hot flash of embarrassment that becomes unbearable when he notices François, sitting at his right, is holding out his bowl as if to offer his portion. Sébastien stares, his ears starting to fill with a loud buzzing sound that precludes all thought. Only instinct remains. When he shoves his chair back, everyone flinches at the scraping sound, but he doesn’t stop or apologize, he just makes a break for the back door as quickly as he can.

The back garden is as beautiful as he remembers it. Even through the dark he can see it’s been a good year—there are vegetables growing in neat rows all over, the peppers and beans in particular seem to have been doing exceptionally well. He feels another stab of guilt at the sight of it all. Why did he leave her here alone? Why did he give her so many sons and provide her with no way to sustain them? Why did he come back so weak and ravaged that his _children_ feel the need to nourish him?

He hears the door and he knows without having to turn around that it’s her.

“Come back inside, please,” Joanna calls after she has closed the door. “The boys won’t eat without you.”

He shakes his head, staring out at the night for he doesn’t trust himself to look at her and not cry. “Food should be for them,” he mutters gruffly.

“They’ve been eating well,” she whispers. “It’s you we’re worried about. You need food, mon amour.”

 _I don’t,_ he thinks. He can’t say the words aloud, and that's how he knows they’re true. He has been starving more days than not since the army left him hanging from that frozen noose. By his reckoning, he has starved long enough to die at least three times over. And yet, just like that first death, he has lived through the torture to see another sunrise.

It was all to get here. It _had_ to be to get here, because what other reason can there be?

As if she can sense him spiraling, Joanna reaches for his hand, and folds it tightly between two of hers. “Let us take care of you for a change. Please.”

He scrapes his teeth across his tongue, staring furiously up at the stars. He knows there’s no argument to be made. No reason to stay out here. So after a minute to compose himself, he follows her back inside.

Dinner is a quiet affair after that. His bowl has been refilled in his absence, and he takes care to eat slowly now, to match the others’ pace and actually taste the food. Joanna does most of the talking, telling him all the meaningless gossip from the neighborhood that neither of them cares about, but he follows it closely, adding questions here and there, just so the boys don’t have the sit in silence. He knows it won’t erase the memory from before, but he hopes it’ll soften it somehow.

There is whiskey after dinner, and Sébastien does his best to savor every sip, unable to remember the last time he had alcohol. Though usually Joanna would not allow it, François and Théodore are allowed a glass, and they do their best to appear to enjoy it. François manages quite well, but Théo can’t stop himself from coughing at the first sip, and Sébastien laughs, the most carefree he’s felt in years.

At some point, Jean Pierre toddles his way over to Sébastien and when he picks him up, the boy settles easily into his lap as if they’ve spent every evening like this. It doesn’t take long before he’s sound asleep, but Sébastien keeps a hand on his side anyway, just to feel his chest rise and fall with every breath. There is not much conversation anymore, not that Sébastien minds. He thinks Joanna must’ve told the boys not to ask him about the war, and he appreciates their self-control. He prefers silence to talking about those years.

When Sasha starts to yawn, Joanna deems the night over, collecting glasses even though the boys haven’t finished theirs. Théo and Sasha whine and fight, but she is as adamant and uncompromising as ever, and she has François on her side too. Sébastien stays in his chair, watching with fond amusement as his wife points to the stairs and his eldest hauls his little brothers up one by one, nudging them when they dawdle on their way to bed. The three of them say their goodnights, the younger two yawning as they climb up the creaking steps.

After they’re gone, Sébastien hoists Jean-Pierre gently up into his arms, cradling him close as he rises to his feet. He walks over to the sink where Joanna is washing out the glasses and leaving them to dry overnight. He hooks his chin over her shoulder, liking the way she starts a little bit at the touch.

“Go on up,” he tells her. “I can clean these.”

“I’ve already finished,” she excuses, plunging the last two into the water.

He sighs against her, pressing his chin down into her shoulder. She has never been very good at letting him do things for her, and clearly the last four years apart have only strengthened that trait. When the last glass is set out to dry, she turns around to face him, her eyes zeroing in immediately at Jean-Pierre snoozing in his arms.

“Oh, look at him,” she coos.

“I think he likes me,” Sébastien comments, and she laughs, covering her mouth with a hand to stifle the sound in case she wakes him.

For a few minutes, they stand there in silence, watching their youngest as he sleeps, looking so peaceful in his father’s arms. Sébastien wants to ask her a hundred things about him—about how her pregnancy was, about the labor, about the boy’s personality and habits—but he’s loathe to clutter the silence. It is enough simply to stand here with her, one child between them and the others safe upstairs.

“Should I put him to bed?” he murmurs finally, knowing they too need to rest. “He’s in with the others by now, yes?”

She nods, smoothing one hand over the crown of Jean-Pierre’s head. She bends down to kiss his forehead, and then leads the way upstairs. When she turns right towards their bedroom, he goes left, knocking softly on the door before entering.

There’s enough light from candles in the little room that he’s able to see the crib, just to the right of the door. It’s the same crib that sheltered all of his sons in their first few years of life, and it feels like a sacred act to Sébastien, to finally be able to lay his fourth son to sleep there. Jean-Pierre is small for his age, but Sébastien knows he’ll need a real bed soon enough. Another task to add to his list, he thinks, as he straightens up and realizes three pairs of eyes staring back at him, candlelight reflected in their pupils.

Sasha is closest, and the most difficult, so he starts there. He has to keep his hands at his sides when he crouches down so he won’t reach out to hug the boy again. He whispers his goodnight, and his hopes for sweet dreams. Sasha simply nods, a grave little man in a child’s body, and parrots the words back.

Sébastien rises and moves to Théodore, who is already sitting up in bed when he nears. Sébastien doesn’t hesitate and he doesn’t need to. Théo’s arms are thin but strong when they wrap around his back, and Sébastien holds him close, cupping his neck with one hand and rubbing up and down his back with the other.

“Je t’aime, je t’aime, je t’aime,” Sébastien whispers, pressing kisses to the boy’s hair.

He can feel Théo crying against him, and he doesn’t pull away until the boy has stopped shaking. Théo wipes his own face clear, but Sébastien touches beneath his eyes anyway, just to check. Then he kisses his forehead, whispers a last goodnight, and moves to François’s bed.

He knows François will not want much—or at least will appear not to want much—but Sébastien has things he needs to say, so he kneels by the boy’s bed. For a few seconds, he just looks at him, watching the way the light flickers across his face. Trying to imagine how much he’s grown and seen and done in the last four years with no father here to turn to.

“I want to thank you,” Sébastien whispers, “for taking care of your mother and your brothers while I was gone.”

François is already shaking his head before he can finish.

“I didn’t do anything,” he mutters. “Mama took care of us—”

“I know you helped,” Sébastien interrupts firmly. “I can see it in the way you carry yourself. You took on the family as your own. You shouldered the responsibility for your brothers and you gave your mother peace. That’s worth more than you can imagine, François.”

They stare at each other for a moment, silent in the half-dark. And then François surprises him by hugging him tightly—and not letting go for many minutes. Sébastien closes his eyes as he embraces the boy, whispering softly to him until finally he has to pull away.

“À demain,” he murmurs, carefully extricating himself and getting to his feet. “Get some sleep now.”

When he returns to their room, Joanna is on the edge of the bed, brushing the day’s tangles out of her hair. He closes the door behind him, smiling at the mere sight of her. The room is lit with the soft glow of a few candles, and he makes his way over to sit by her side. When her hands falter, he takes the brush and picks up where she left off. For a few minutes, he works in silence until her hair is smooth and soft. He gently brushes the strands off one shoulder and onto the other, so he can press a kiss to the exposed skin. Her eyes fall closed and he presses another and another until his mouth ends up just above her pulse. Her heart is pounding beneath the touch of his lips.

He kisses there once, twice, three times before pulling away to meet her eye.

“I have missed you,” he whispers.

She shakes her head, not having the words for it. Tears let loose, and he dutifully brushes each away until finally she stops him with a hand on his wrist.

“You’ll end up having to do that all night,” she whispers, smiling weakly. She presses a kiss to his knuckles. “And we have better ways to spend our time.”

His eyes brighten with interest, and she presses another kiss to his fingers before getting to her feet. She takes the brush from his hands and deposits it on the little vanity by the door before moving to the wardrobe. He shadows her footsteps, having a hard time believing that he’s able to do this again: be in the same room with her, touch her, kiss her, watch her start to undress—

His hands come up to help her automatically. He’s never been good at just watching, even when she’s asked, and he can hear her laugh softly as he lives up to the memory. Her skirts fall in a pile, and after that, his hands rise to her back, working carefully through the clasps and ties at the back of her dress. Once it’s loose enough, she shrugs out of the sleeves and steps out of the rest. He hangs the various pieces of the dress back in the wardrobe before returning his attention to her.

She looks over her shoulder as he smooths his hands down her back, his fingers strumming over the lacings of her corset. She knows intuitively that he is not stalling out of any kind of attempt to play up the romance, for she can feel it too—that old nervousness, creeping back in, just as powerful after so many years together as it was that first evening.

“We know what we’re doing,” she whispers, cupping the side of his face. “Don’t we?”

“We have four boys to prove it,” he agrees. And then: “Still, I am nervous. Like this is our wedding night all over again."

She smiles, turning in his arms to face him fully. “I feel like that too,” she whispers, squeezing his sides. Even with his clothes still on, she can feel his bones so much more easily now than ever before. “We got through the first time just fine. We’ll get through this too.”

“Mm.” He rests his forehead against hers. “I was so scared of you that first night. You looked so perfect, so beautiful, and somehow you were all for me. You wanted _me._ I was terrified of disappointing you.”

Joanna smiles at the memory. “I thought you were going to keep your mouth between my legs all night. I kept wondering how I was going to explain to my mother that yes, you took me to bed on our wedding night, but only with your tongue.”

“There were fingers involved too, as I recall.”

She laughs, leaning forward so she can kiss him fully on the mouth.

“There will be time for that tomorrow,” she whispers, stroking his newly shaven cheeks. “But for now, all I want is to feel you again.”

She puts her back to him again, and he doesn’t hesitate in undoing her corset this time. The years apart and the time at war have not dulled his quick fingers. He moves easily through the laces, parting the stays and letting them drop to the floor. She steps away then, still wearing her shift, and slips into their bed beneath the covers.

He puts away the shed corset, and then turns to face her, smiling as he catches her watchful eye from bed. She’s always enjoyed this, watching him undress for her from the safety and comfort of their marriage bed. He plays it up as much as he can, toying with the tie of his trousers as he approaches the bed, pulling his shirt slowly over his head.

She draws in a sharp breath, not the kind he likes to hear, and it takes him a moment to realize that the gaunt body he’s become so accustomed to the last couple years is entirely new to her. He supposes that his clothes hid the worst of it earlier, but now that he is naked, it’s impossible to overlook. Nearly all of the muscle definition he once had is gone. Not only are all of his ribs visible, but so are the bony protrusions of his pelvis and shoulders. His skin is like a thin casing wrapped around a skeleton, and he wants to be able to tell her that he’ll gain the weight back, build the muscle back, that he’ll be himself again, but he doesn’t know. Maybe he will always look just as he did the day he died—like a starving, broken man.

“I’m okay,” he rushes to assure her before she can speak. “I look worse than I feel. The Russians were burning farmland as we advanced, so there was little to eat on the campaign out, and even less on my way back. I managed, but I know I look like…”

He trails off, having the name for it— _a corpse_ —but unwilling to say it. He can still remember what it felt like, dying with that rope around his neck, dying until finally he could cut himself free.

“We can wait,” he tells her instead. “If you don’t want—”

She shakes her head. “I have waited years for this, Sébastien. I am not waiting any longer.”

With one long, searching look from him and a final nod from her, he does away with his trousers, and joins her beneath the blankets. It is so soft and warm and for a few second he needs to close his eyes to take it in. He has not been this comfortable since he last left home.

She presses kisses to his shoulder, and takes his hand, first holding it in both of hers, and then pressing it against her body. He can feel the plush softness of her breast beneath her shift and he turns his head towards her, finding her mouth already open and waiting for his.

He moves on top of her, pushing her shift up past her waist with one hand before sliding his other between her legs. She moans into his mouth, rolling her hips into his touch, but just as he’s using a knee to spread her legs, she stops him.

“Wait, wait.” One of her hands is on his face and the other on his chest, pushing him back.

“Sorry,” he pants, pulling away. “I thought you said… Did I do something wrong?” he whispers, fearful eyes skipping over her face.

“No,” she murmurs, stroking his cheek. “No, you are perfect.”

“So… What is it?”

“I just wanted to tell you, before we go any further…” She draws in a shaky breath. “I want you to know that… that four years may have passed, but I am still yours.”

He closes his eyes. “Joanna, you don’t have to—”

“I want you to hear this, Sébastien. I need you to hear it.” She waits until he opens his eyes and meets her gaze once more. Her voice is soft when she says, “There’s never been anyone but you. And there never will be, understand?”

He nods. He bends down to kiss her lips, expecting it to be over then, but she twists away after just a moment. His forehead is creased in concern but she avoids the questions in his eyes.

“But I know…” Her chest rises with another anxious breath. “I know it’s different for men at war.”

He closes his eyes. “Joanna…”

“It’s all right,” she whispers, sniffing and swiping quickly at the tears that escape. “I am not naïve. I know that you—”

“You are the only woman for me,” he interrupts. “You will _always_ be the only woman for me. I have had no one else and I do not want anyone else, and I promise you that will never change.”

When she tries to take a breath, a sob bursts from her chest. But he can see she’s smiling beneath the tears when she asks, “Vraiment?”

“Yes.” He smiles, and wraps an arm around her back to pull her close. “I swear on every saint I can name—”

“Well, that’s not many,” she frowns.

He grins, kissing her again before pulling back. “Then I swear on you, and on me. On our children. Better?”

“Better,” she whispers, pulling him close once more.

Together, they pull the shift over her head and toss it aside. He stares at her bare beneath him, at an utter loss for words. She is just as he remembers, the softness in her body a reminder of all she’s given him.

“May I?” he murmurs, moving to kneel between her legs.

“You never have to ask, you know that.”

His gaze flicks to her face. “It’s been four years.”

“And the answer is still yes. As long as it’s you, it will always be yes.”

He kisses her, whispering his love into her mouth.

They do not speak much after that. He brings her pleasure, and finds his own, the both of them trying to stay as quiet as possible, knowing some of their children must still be awake down the hall. As they cuddle close in the aftermath, she is the first to speak.

“It feels like a miracle,” she whispers, “to have you here again.”

He looks at her and he thinks that now is the time to tell her that he was saved from death once. That he thinks he has been saved from death many more times, though he can’t prove them all. He thinks about retrieving that razor and slicing his skin open and showing her how quickly it heals, so she doesn’t have to take his word for it, she can see with her own eyes too.

But what would the point of that be? He still has no way to explain. He will just make her confused, and scared, and she doesn’t deserve that. So instead of saying anything at all, he reaches for her again with eager hands. She laughs when he presses against her, spreading her legs to welcome him.

“You have not changed,” she teases between kisses. “Always trying for another son.”

“Wouldn’t say no to a daughter this time.”

She grins, lifting her chin to kiss his forehead. “I love you.”

The second time is slower and longer and if he is doing his damndest to exhaust her, well, she doesn’t mind. She is as eager for him as ever, and that fact alone—as if the last four years have changed nothing between—fuels him late into the night. Maybe things won’t have to change much, he thinks. If they can still manage the most intimate part of their relationship with such ease, surely everything else will fall into place.

Eventually it becomes so late that are both struggling to keep their eyes open. She whispers questions between yawns and he answers them between momentary dozes.

“I’m scared to go to sleep,” she murmurs. “I have dreamed of you so often since you left. It felt like the only thing that kept me going sometimes, knowing that I would see you at night when I closed my eyes. What if I wake up and this has all been a dream? What will I do tomorrow?”

“It isn’t a dream,” he assures her, confident for once in that answer.

He has dreamed of her too—used to every evening—but he has not dreamed of her once since he died and came back to life. Now he only dreams of strangers—two men and two women, people he has never seen before who speak words he cannot understand.

“I will be here when you wake up,” he promises. “You can sleep.” He yawns, adding, “And I will too, so long as you don’t go anywhere.”

“Don’t be silly,” she murmurs, taking his arm and wrapping it around her so they will be close even as they sleep. “I will never go anywhere you can’t follow me, Sébastien.”

He buries his nose in her hair, breathes her in deep, and finally gives in to sleep.

When he wakes with a jolt sometime later, it is still dark inside and outside their little home. He lies there, breathing hard, trying to remember the dream and forget it all at once. It was those women again. They were walking somewhere, barefoot through the snow, though he knows not where. The cold reminds him of Russia, and he reaches for his wife on instinct, wanting the warmth of her around him, only to discover as he does so that they aren’t the only occupants of their own bed.

Peering through the dark, he can just barely make out the little shapes of Sasha and Jean-Pierre curled up on his wife’s side. Sébastien smiles, sliding an arm around Joanna’s waist, letting his fingertips skim over her bare stomach. He closes his eyes, listening to the quiet breathing of his family, and he wonders if she is pregnant again already. He hopes she is.

He doesn’t wake again until after dawn. The sound of carts passing by in the streets wakes him, accompanied by the occasional shout of some neighbor or another. It’s all so loud after so many months spent in the wilderness. But he’s too sleepy to focus much on those sounds, or think much of the day ahead. He can feel Joanna’s body, so warm and solid and _real_ , pressed up against his, and he thinks it will be a slow morning today. Maybe he can convince her to stay with him between the sheets a little longer, the way they used to before they had the boys to care for.

He’s yawning, and stretching his legs beneath the covers, when he bumps up against something hard. He opens his eyes, peering down at the foot of the bed, and he’s greeted by the sight of Théo, fast asleep and curled up like dog in space between Joanna’s legs and his own. Sébastien stares, not able to understand for a moment what he’s looking at. He picks his head up, and looks around the room. Jean-Pierre and Sasha are still sleeping soundly on Joanna’s other side—he remembers that—but he does not know when Théo joined them. Most surprising of all is François, sleeping on the floor in front of the door with a pillow and blanket clearly brought from the other room. Sébastien feels a rush of relief that he never got up in the night; he would’ve tripped over the boy without ever seeing him.

He lies there for a while and searches his mind, trying to remember the last time any of his sons slept in his bedroom overnight. When they were sick, maybe. When they were young enough that just being near a parent after a nightmare made sleep bearable. But even then, it was only ever one at a time. Never all of them, never like this—at least not before he left. But perhaps in the last four years, things have changed more than he thought.

When Joanna stirs beside him sometime later, murmuring a good morning, he can spare only the most perfunctory of kisses before his curiosity gets the better of him.

“Is it usually like this in the mornings?” he whispers, taking care to keep his voice low so as not to wake anyone. “With them all here like this?”

He looks around at all their children piled into the room, and Joanna follows his gaze, her eyes widening when she notices Théo at the end of the bed and François by the door. Evidently they arrived when she’d been asleep too.

“No,” she replies, stifling a laugh into his shoulder. “No, it’s never like this. I can’t remember the last time François stepped into this room, let alone slept here overnight. You know how Théo is always taking cues on how to be a man from him. And Sasha, that boy, I think he could raise himself. Even Jean-Pierre, he stays in his crib with the boys.” Joanna shakes her head slowly, turning to catch his eye. “Guess there's something different this morning, hm?"

Sébastien finds her hand beneath the covers and laces his fingers with hers, squeezing hard. She smiles at the touch, leaning over to kiss him.

“It is good for them,” she whispers, “to have you home again. It wasn't the same without you.”

“I know they were doing well under your care.”

She frames his face with one hand. “We all do better when you’re here.”

“Good,” he whispers, leaning into her touch. “Because I do better when I’m here too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Would love to hear your thoughts!!


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